This  enthralling account of  the Resistance in Crete, from the German invasion to the liberation, is by one of its most  active Cretan participants. His duties as guide  and runner  were  exhausting  and  dangerous. They entailed  immense  journeys  on foot, usually  at full speed over some  of  the  most  precipitous country  in Europe, carrying messages  between  towns and secret wireless stations in the mountains, humping  batteries, explosives  and  arms, or  guiding English, Australian  or  New Zealand  stragglers or agents in disguise  through  heavily  garrisoned  areas. He was one of a small  band, many of whom were captured, tortured  and shot by the Germans. Their only incentive  was  a sense of duty to their country  and their allies. All this  is  described  by George Psychoundakis ( who was later  awarded a B.E.M. )  with  touches  of  houmor, with a quite  extraordinary  sense  of  humanity  and with  the  unselfconscious  eye  of a  natural  poet. In his introduction  Patrick Leigh Fermor, whose own account of the capture  of  General Kraipe has never yet been told, gives in vivid tones  the  background  to  epic  events  recountered  by  his  comrade in arms.